Last Sunday’s appearance by Natalie Bennett on the Daily Politics, an interview in which she was thoroughly dismantled by Andrew Neil, has already become semi-legendary. For those of you yet to witness it, Bennett becomes completely unstuck. She has to fall back on the ultimate no-no for a politician: “All of the details are on […]
The continuing debate about the debates means they are on the verge of happening – but in a format that favours the Tories
Grant Shapps, chairman of the Conservative Party, has hinted that Cameron may have to participate in the TV debates after all. Asked whether the prime minister would turn up if they happened, yes or no, Shapps gave an unequivocal answer: “It’s a yes.” I use the words “have to” as it’s the worst kept secret […]
We do not have a proportional voting system, something a lot of people find strangely hard to fathom
There was an article in the Guardian yesterday which extrapolated that, based on some recent Scottish polling, the SNP would get 55 seats and Labour would get 4. This is classic Westminster reporting; the whole thing based on a misunderstanding about how the voting system actually operates. For instance, there are two seats in Scotland […]
Who are these so called “silent Tories” anyway?
I was at a Westminster function last night and a Labour supporter and I got into a discussion about who would win the general election. I told him that, with a heavy heart, I thought the Tories would be the largest party in a hung parliament. He was adamant that I was wrong. “Look at […]
One thing we can say about the polls: the vote share for the two largest parties appears on course for an all time low in May
There was a day last week when an Ashcroft poll put the Tories six points up over Labour, while a Populus poll had Labour five points up on the Conservatives. An eleven point swing during one twenty-four hour period not surprisingly had commentators wondering about why the polling had gone all wacky on us. This […]
George Osborne’s demand that Labour rule out working with the SNP is frankly, a bit weird
At a Commons Treasury Committee meeting yesterday, George Osborne gave his thoughts about a possible Labour-SNP coalition: “There’s going to be a lot of hard negotiation on things like the fiscal framework and I think it would be very unfair to the whole United Kingdom if we had a Chancellor of the Exchequer who was […]
Chris Bryant v James Blunt: it’s tough to know who to support, really
I enjoyed the Bryant v Blunt twitter spat as much as anyone. It was nice to see a political social media argument where the gloves really came off, as opposed to the usual platitudinous nonsense these things usually conform to. My only dilemma revolved around to who to support. It’s human inclination to want to […]
Why the Greens’ “citizen’s income” is a bad idea but will nevertheless cause problems for Labour
Over the weekend, Natalie Bennett did a media drive to promote the Green Party’s election policy around a “citizen’s income”. The idea is extremely simple to explain: every adult in the UK gets £72.40 a week from the government. This takes the place of all current welfare systems. This stipend from the Treasury would be […]
Could the Tories and the SNP ever do a Westminster deal?
“We’ll never put the Tories into government.” These words Nicola Sturgeon told SNP’s conference in November. I myself had no reason to doubt them. The Conservative Party is so loathed by the vast majority of Scots, assuring voters in Scotland that the Nats would never consider propping up the Dark Side was extremely important for […]
Will the Charlie Hebdo atrocity help the Tories in the short term?
Solidarity in the West has been impressive post-January 7th. The surge of the far-right has, so far, not been as scary as I had feared. Nigel Farage’s comments on the matter were rightly jumped all over, by all sections of the press, as being opportunistic and a bit nasty. Nigel had to take his brand […]